Arlene Francis

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Arlene Francis

Arlene Francis (born Arline Francis Kazanjian October 20, 1907 - May 31, 2001) was an American actress, radio talk show host and game show panelist of Armenian descent. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, she is probably best known for her long-standing role as a panelist on the television game show What's My Line?, on which she regularly appeared for twenty-five years, from 1950 through the mid-1970s.

1 Career
2 Trivia
3 Personal life
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Career

Arlene Francis had a broad and varied career as an entertainer. She was an accomplished actress with 25 Broadway plays to her credit, from La Gringa in 1928 to Don't Call Back in 1975. She also performed in many local theatre and off-Broadway plays.

Arlene Francis in the early 1950s

Francis was a well known New York City radio personality, having hosted several radio programs, including a long-running midday chat show on WOR-AM. In the 1940's, she emceed a network radio game show, Blind Date, which she also hosted on television from 1949 to 1952. She was one of the regular contributors to NBC Radio's Monitor in the 1950s and 1960s.

Francis was a regular panelist on the game show What's My Line? throughout almost its entire network run on CBS from 1950 to 1967, and she also appeared in the show's revival as a syndicated show the following year. She joined the original show on its second episode in 1950 and remained a panelist until the end of the syndicated version of the program in 1975. The original show, which featured guests whose occupation, or "line," the panelists were to guess, became one of the classic television game shows, noted for the urbanity of its host and panelists. Francis also appeared on many other game shows, including Match Game, Password and other programs produced by Mark Goodson and Bill Todman.

Arlene Francis in 1962

Francis was a pioneer for women on television, one of the first women to host a program that was not musical or dramatic. From 1954 to 1957 she was host and editor-in-chief of Home, NBC's ambitious hour-long daytime magazine program oriented toward women, which was conceived by network president Pat Weaver as a complement to the network's Today and Tonight programs. Newsweek magazine put her on its cover as "the first lady of television." She also hosted Talent Patrol in the mid 1950s.

She acted in several films, debuting in the role of a prostitute in Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932). In the 1960's, she appeared in One, Two, Three (1961), directed by Billy Wilder, The Thrill of It All (1963), and in the television version of the play Laura (1968), which she had played on stage several times. Her final film performance was the Billy Wilder film Fedora (1978).

Francis wrote an autobiography in 1978 entitled Arlene Francis: A Memoir. She also wrote That Certain Something: The Magic of Charm in 1960 and a book/cookbook, No Time for Cooking, in 1961.

She died on May 31, 2001 in San Francisco at the age of 93 after a long bout with Alzheimer's disease and cancer.

[edit] Trivia

In 1960, a dumbbell being used to prop open a window in her New York City apartment slipped and fell eight stories onto a Detroit tourist who was in New York celebrating his 60th birthday, killing him.^[1]
According to Francis's obituary in the Los Angeles Times (June 2, 2001), in 1963 she was driving on a rain-swept highway, when her car and another collided, killing the other driver. She suffered a concussion and a fractured shoulder.^[1] During her recuperation, Francis missed several weeks of What's My Line? broadcasts. Upon her return, she gamely wore outfits sporting cloaks and large scarves to camouflage her arm, which appeared to be in a sling.

Arlene Francis in the early 1970s
In 1988 on New York's Lexington Avenue, a thief snatched the heart-shaped necklace given to her by her husband on their first wedding anniversary and often worn on What's My Line?.^[1] Afterward, according to Andy Rooney in his book Common Nonsense, a New York City taxi driver commissioned Tiffany to make a replacement locket from their original design sketches and presented it to Francis as a gift.

[edit] Personal life

Francis was married twice, first to Neil Agnew from 1935 to 1945. According to the Los Angles Times obituary of Francis (6/02/01), that marriage ended in divorce.

Her second marriage was to actor/producer Martin Gabel from 1946 until his death on May 22, 1986, of a heart attack. Their marriage produced a son, Peter Gabel, born January 28, 1947, who is currently a law professor at the New College of California in San Francisco. Peter was at his mother's side when she died.